The reasons for such an ambitious plan includes the ability access new markets and create business growth in fields in all areas of the US that would require broadband access in order to thrive.  Applications such as distance learning, telemedicine to giving users broadband access for the first time, in fact the chairman sites 100 Mbps as NOT the ultimate goal but he would like to shoot past and provide even higher speeds to consumers, perhaps such as Google’s recently announced initiative of 1 Gpbs speed for up to 500,000 customers.

There are significant obstacles that exist for the plan which are primarily due to the technology available today.   According to electronista:

Current cable modem service often peaks at 25Mbps and is typically expensive at this rate; new DOCSIS 3.0 modems can reach 100Mbps but are only available in a few areas and are so far only served 50Mbps connections. Verizon is the best prepared with its fiber optic FiOS network but would need to complete more upgrades to reach the 100Mbps speed across most of its network.

Internet providers have also traditionally been resistant to any moves to supply broadband to many rural areas that would be needed to reach the 90 percent coverage target, going so far as to sponsor “astroturf” (fake grassroots) organizations and engaging in frequent lobbying to discourage mandates for service in these areas. The advent of 4G is expected to mitigate some of this as it substantially lowers the cost of covering a remote area, although LTE and similar standards may provide much less than 100Mbps in practice.

While the exact method for deployment isn’t necessarily very clear, the plan is potentially good news for the end user.  What companies participate and how this plan is executed will be something we all should watch.  Wireless technology such as WiMax may offer a solution to help make this plan a reality and allow broad deployment, but keep your eyes peeled and those broadband hungry applications ready.

The speeds that Google is looking to provide to the end user are over 1 gigabit per second, or in rough terms is approximately 100 times faster than what users typically see today.  Think about that for a second – 100 times!  The driving force behind such a push are varied but as PC World put it,

“From a user perspective, satisfaction with Internet connection speed is relative. Long after DSL and cable broadband were available, many users were still happily dialing in with 56k modems. Happy, that is, until they visited a friend or relative with broadband and saw what was possible.

Business customers may be perfectly satisfied with current mid-range offerings from Comcast and AT&T. Broadband speeds of 6 Mbps, or 12 Mbps are just fine for many business purposes. However, needs change and technology evolves. Businesses that need to transfer large files or perform real-time video streaming might be frustrated with speeds twice that fast.”

The takeaway it would seem is that next generation applications potentially have greater appeal to be built and adopted by businesses and consumers with an increased amount of bandwidth if available to the end user.  Additionally, you don’t know what you’re missing and what’s possible until you have literally no restrictions on the speed of the data communications.  This starts to make even more sense as Google is trying to elevate their cloud-based computer offerings to the general public and businesses meaning services that you run currently ON your computer could be hosted on the cloud.  Google recently announced their Chrome Operating System that will rely more on applications that are hosted on servers rather than use the processing power and hard drive of your computer today.  Google may have their eyes on pushing those services and potentially have a need to develop faster speeds and shove their competitors to do the same.

Regardless, you should keep your eyes peeled on what’s happening regarding Google’s broadband initiative, if you’re interested in getting your community involved or learning more, go here to sign up.